Penny Miceli is the Director of Sponsored Projects & Research at Keene State College, a predominantly undergraduate, public liberal arts institution in New Hampshire. In this capacity, she oversees the institutional office delivering a suite of pre-award and non-financial post-award services, including proposal development support, proposal review and submission, and award review, negotiation, and acceptance. In addition, she manages policy and procedure development for sponsored programs, and the administration of institutional research compliance areas such as Human Subjects Protections, Institutional Animal Care and Use, Responsible Conduct of Research, and Financial Conflicts of Interest, and serves as the institution’s Research Integrity Officer. More recently, she has worked to establish effective solutions for Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer in a resource-limited environment. Hired by Keene State College in 2008 to build the institution’s sponsored programs infrastructure and professionalize its services, Penny has worked with leadership to advance the institution’s research culture while respecting the institution’s history, mission around undergraduate education, and vision for the future.

During her tenure at Keene State College, Penny established the institution’s first Research Advisory Council, and developed mechanisms for communicating and reporting out to both administrative leaders and campus constituents. She has created research-related professional development opportunities for faculty, which have included grant- and fellowship-writing workshops, faculty roundtable discussions on research and scholarship issues, and new faculty orientation. Penny successfully advocated for changes to the institution’s internal support of research, including establishment of new funding programs designed to provide strategic investments and seed funding. She serves as the campus liaison for key state-wide partnership grants, which have been an integral part of the institution’s strategy for expanding its research culture and capacity. She is widely regarded as a knowledgeable and supportive resource on both her own campus, within her state, and beyond. She is certified in research administration by the Research Administrators Certification Council, and holds a PhD in developmental psychology. She has been a member of NCURA since 2004, and shares her knowledge and expertise with others by presenting at regional and national conferences, serving on regional committees, and serving as a peer reviewer.

Penny’s diverse experiences prior to coming to Keene State College inform her work and lend a broader sensibility to her approach. At the University of Notre Dame (private, high research volume institution) she spent time on both the pre-award and post-award sides of the operation. As Assistant Director of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (College of Arts & Letters), Penny assisted faculty in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in the development of external grant proposals, with special responsibility for those proposals in the social sciences. She then moved to Notre Dame’s central office to launch post-award outreach services in the College of Science, working to ensure a smooth grant lifecycle from award set-up to close-out. She also served as the institution’s IRB Administrator, coordinating and advising and 8-member board charged with reviewing and approving research involving human subjects. Penny also previously worked in the Research & Development (R&D) department of a private sector firm, where her approach to timely, accurate, and personalized customer service was shaped.

NCURA Peer Program engagements are priced as a flat fee, scaled to the sponsored programs total active award dollars in the last fiscal year, regardless of type of Peer Program engagement.